What’s your opinion on sex, love, and infidelity? Your answer can vary wildly depending on where you live, how you’ve been raised, and your social circles. The bedroom has always been off-limits in polite discussions, but this time we’re challenging you to deep-dive into the issue with us.
In this episode, Alexander McCaig sits down with David Buss, who is considered one of the founders of evolutionary psychology. The pair have a comprehensive discussion on what it means to be monogamous, the evolution of sexual psychology, and the institutions we’ve built that enshrine our shared perspective of what a perfect relationship should be.
One theory David Buss discusses in this episode is that sexual violence against women happens because we do not understand our desires. David Buss explains that women and men have different sexual psychologies.
It’s certainly a controversial opinion—but one David Buss is firm on defending.
For example, the amount of time you let elapse before seeking sex, or the emotionl investment required before seeking sex—these are differences that recur over time and differ largely between the two sexes.
In this case, men eventually evolve and adapt to influence or manipulate women, and women do the same thing. It’s a co-evolutionary arms race.
How effective are our cultural institutions in defending values we consider important to a healthy monogamous relationship? For example, it is illegal to marry two people in the United States—and yet, infidelity rates are high. According to Alfred Kinsey, an estimated 50% of infidelity rates are committed by males, while 26% are committed by females.
This indicates that people do engage in what David Buss calls, “serial mating.”
There are many ways to understand how we institutionalize or normalize our evolved psychology. One way is to look at the cultural institutions that reflect it. Another is that because mating is inherently a competitive process, mates are always in short supply.
This can be observed in countries where there are vast differences in male-female population. When a society has more men than women, violence committed by men and rape rates tend to go up. And according to David Buss, it’s also a place where polygamous culture can be a problem.. For example, cultures here one man can have four wives creates a large pool of young males who do not have sexual access to females. As a result, these repressed feelings become bottled up and explode in sexual violence.
This doesn’t just happen out of a desire for sexual variety, but also for things that David Buss calls “mate value discrepancies.” If one person pursues another who is significantly more attractive than him, they will get angry when their attempts are unsuccessful. But even if the pursuit is a success, the mate value discrepancy means that she has opportunities to trade him up for someone better. As a result, she is more likely to leave him or be sexually unfaithful. This can also hold true if the man is deemed as more attractive than the woman.
If you are alive today, you are an evolutionary success story. And one interesting point about our species is our mating system, which calls for a long-term commitment. This arrangement only occurs in about three to five percent of mammalian species.
David Buss theorizes that due to the tremendous amount of commitment that goes into starting a family, males have evolved sexual jealousy. This is otherwise known as male sexual proprietariness, coined by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly. This jealousy machinery is designed to keep partners faithful and to ward off rivals.
With this in mind, David Buss believes that his book can be valuable for women because it outlines predictors of when they might be in a dangerous situation as a result of male sexual jealousy. Verbal insults, isolation, and obsessively monitoring her time are statistical predictors that a man will engage in physical violence. This, in turn, can also be a form of sexual violence, because it curtails her ability to choose when, where, and with whom she has sex.
Pretending that the two sexes are identical just continues to perpetuate sexual violence. Understanding how our mindset and psychology has evolved with regards to sex helps us put our desires into perspective. When we have a better grasp of how it affects us, we can help promote safe relationships, particularly for women, and continue to respect their capacity to choose.
Sexual violence against women is at the core of the issue. It also takes on more forms than we think. Deception on internet dating, conflict within relationships, stalking in the aftermath of a messy break-up, intimate partner violence, financial infidelity, sexual infidelity, revenge porn…all of these occurrences, David Buss argues, is united when the partner seeks to bypass female choice. This also happens to be the first law of mating.
While we should celebrate how we are products of a large and complex ancestral system, we also need to acknowledge the problems in sexual psychology that may have made our existence possible in the first place. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to future generations.
Sexual double standards go beyond the sexes. It’s not just about whether it’s “more justifiable” for men to cheat than women. David Buss believes that one exists between the self versus the partner as well.
For example, he poses this interesting thought experiment, where the audience is invited to put themselves in the shoes of a married man: would it be okay if I were sexually attracted to my neighbor’s wife? What about if my wife is attracted to the neighbor’s husband?
“We engage in a lot of moral hypocrisy in the sexual domain, where the morals that we espouse publicly are those, often, for other people to follow, and we don't always follow them ourselves,” David Buss explained.
Alexander McCaig calls for listeners of this episode to reflect on whether they’re experiencing a psychological imbalance. If you’ve condemned someone for having multiple sexual partners, but believe that you yourself have good reason to, then it may be a sign for you to reassess how you think about sexuality.
People need a natural understanding that attraction is well within the bounds of our biology. However, it does not necessarily mean that this attraction warrants jealousy. After all, one interesting aspect of relationships is that even in happy ones, men and women still have the capacity to find other people sexually attractive.
The dramatic proliferation of online dating and digital pornography is presenting a new challenge to our sexual psychology.
Previously, we would only ever have access to a few dozen potential mates in our entire lifetime. Now, we can leaf through thousands or millions of options through internet dating sites and applications. In addition, technologies like virtual sex, sex dolls, and sex toys are becoming increasingly realistic.
Even here, the differences in our sexual psychology is evident. For example, pornography differs depending on whether it is meant to be viewed by a male or female audience.
“With males, for example, it's multiple partners, it's no context, no emotional involvement. It's basically, woman comes into the room, sex starts happening right away. Whereas women's pornography, there's more context, plot, emotional involvement, psychological investment, and so forth,” David Buss explained.
Alexander McCaig raises the concern that the dopamine hit created by pornography can make it difficult for people to see how these interactions and relationships are built with hard work and effort in the real world.
Due to the convenience, people are spending more time on online pornography. This means that sexual relationships have declined in real life, and marriage rates as well. What do these trends point towards, and is it something we should celebrate?
Changes in the way we love, bond, and attach to people take one set of mechanisms. Changes in desire for sexual variety and sexual psychology as a whole are an entirely different set. It’s time we open up to our partners and to ourselves about how we truly feel. Let’s break free from living a proverbial life of quiet desperation.
We owe it to ourselves and to our loved ones to be more open about such a human part of ourselves.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and earn through the TARTLE Marketplace here.
Christopher Wanjek’s journey to publishing his book, entitled Spacefarers: How Humans Will Settle the Moon, Mars, and Beyond, began when Harvard University offered him the opportunity to write on any topic for a book series.
As a senior writer at NASA for ten years, Christopher Wanjek looked forward to writing on topics that he was already familiar with: the big bang, black holes, and gravitational waves. However, he quickly found that all his topics of expertise were already taken and decided to turn his eyes on a slightly different topic: space colonization.
Most astrophysicists believe that space colonization is so complicated, tedious, and difficult, it isn’t worth discussing yet. We just aren’t at that point where we can think of going to space.
However, Christopher Wanjek’s book doesn’t explore the nitty-gritty mechanics or quantum physics behind humans conquering the moon and stars. Instead, he gives us the opportunity to view the space race and the growing space industry in a different light. The main question he works to answer in his book is: why would we go to space, and then stay up there?
Christopher Wanjek likened our current perspective of living in space to living on Mount Everest. While the most seasoned mountain climbers dream of eventually reaching the summit, nobody lives on the summit itself because it’s not practical. So are there any economic and emotional motivations for people on the ground, like you and I, to reach and settle on the moon?
Alexander McCaig explained that according to Christopher Wanjek’s book, there are three main reasons humans support space exploration. We either want to go to space because we have religious reasons, economic reasons, or for war—like in the space race.
Of the three, war is the easiest reason humans can resonate with. It has already happened before, between the US and Russia. And Alexander McCaig notes that getting there isn’t the big thing—it’s the process of developing the technology that we need to get to the end goal that counts.
Christopher Wanjek gave a comprehensive logical process for making space settlements a reality. First, the involvement of tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is a great first step because it generates interest, and eventually a market, for people to go into space. While this journey is only accessible to the super wealthy, continued hype for this venture could see more people go into space as prices are lowered and it becomes more accessible. Here, the space tourism industry takes its first steps.
The next step is to have people in lower earth orbit, like the International Space Station. Their participation in the market can be valuable because their presence generates competition. This competition serves as an incentive for players in the market to innovate and make resources more affordable, which would in turn stimulate the space industry overall.
Now that we have clear and tangible steps that we can take to make space colonization a reality, the next question is: how can we incentivize humanity to support it?
Christopher Wanjek shared that in his experience, many people doubted the urgency of exploring space. After all, humanity already has tons of problems on earth, so why shouldn’t we just focus on our own planet first?
He pointed out that this is a common misunderstanding because everything developed for the space industry has helped earth. For example, communication satellites help broadcast television signals around the world. Weather satellites allow us to predict future weather patterns.
In the future, space holds even more in store for us earthlings. Since there’s uranium on the moon, we could develop the technology and infrastructure to build nuclear power plants. The moon also doesn’t have any dust clouds, so we could find a way to harness solar energy and then transport it to earth.
Of course, the timeline for this venture will probably span decades. If the ice race to Antarctica took a ton of manpower, imagine how much more it would take for us to be comfortable in space.
Despite our technologies developing at an unprecedented pace, space colonization may still be decades or even centuries away. This is an intergenerational effort that will take plenty of collaboration from humanity as a collective.
Most of us have never really thought about the implications of settling down away from earth. Like climbing Mount Everest, it just sounded like a cool activity to check off the bucket list. Christopher Wanjek’s research has given us so much meaningful insight into the tangible effects of expanding outside our little blue and green globe.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and earn through the TARTLE Marketplace here.
Our present economic systems are not structured to benefit us. Instead, it’s been tweaked throughout the years to allow people to protect their wealth. So, what happens to vulnerable people from disenfranchised communities who were not born with a silver spoon?
These minorities find themselves struggling to amass the same opportunities for success as those on the top. They cannot build a long-term vision that can sustain their evolution because they can’t even sustain their basic needs for survival.
When life becomes a routine of securing the bare essentials on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis, people start losing their sense of self. Their personality and mental health suffers. When depression is one of the greatest mental health challenges faced by Americans today, you know that people are trapped in an economic system that does not have their quality of life in its best interests.
In his book, Robert Verkaik tries finding the answers to heavy-hitting questions like: has capitalism broken its contract with hard work? Do we need to start reevaluating it? And if we do, how do we make it fairer so that it distributes more wealth, more fairly—which was the whole point of what capitalism was in the first place?
But how can we blame all these grassroot problems on an overarching economic system? While it is possible for people to dismiss market crashes because the system can bounce back, these disasters aren’t a one-time deal for everyone. They have lasting effects on people who have invested their lives into working for businesses.
These crashes don’t just change the dollar value. They change people as well.
According to Robert Verkaik, we moved to a capitalist system because we wanted to free ourselves from aristocracies, which concentrated all the land and wealth into the hands of the very, very few. Between the 19th and the 20th century, this was an effective transition that led to booming economies. And during this time, wealth was distributed relatively fairly in comparison to what capitalism is doing to the spread of wealth today.
Our survival throughout the COVID-19 pandemic was, in large part, due to the hard work of front liners and essential workers who made it possible for us to stay indoors and practice social distancing measures. Robert Verkaik emphasizes that we need to prioritize providing support to these workers, who traditionally went unnoticed.
Alexander McCaig discussed how, in the United States, a growing lower middle class is on its way to challenge the massive wealth gap. To this, Robert Verkaik believes that a more progressive taxation could be beneficial.
Robert Verkaik explains that in the last economic crisis, major banks injected plenty of capital into the system to keep the economy afloat. However, this liquidity eventually routed into the assets of the already wealthy. This manifested in owning multiple houses, jets, super yachts, and diamond investments, to name a few. And the value of these assets have doubled in the last ten years.
This means that the wealthy have only benefited from economic catastrophes, while the rest of us struggle to keep our heads above the water. Robert Verkaik believes that this will hold true for the pandemic, in the same way that it held true for the credit crunch. Meanwhile, the middle income earners continue to tread water.
He emphasizes that it’s less about using taxes on the rich to pay the poor, and more about dealing with a large middle class who are also struggling in different ways.
Ultimately, Robert Verkaik suggests that any change in the economy must be done with the climate in mind. This is why he supports the New Green Deal. Building economies with jobs that are environmentally sustainable is the key to the future.
What does this look like? It’s about looking for new economies and industries that create and help sustain new energies, sources of fuel, and houses with sustainable heating. These avenues bring in many more jobs to people who will be displaced through the changing nature of work and artificial intelligence.
Through TARTLE, you have the opportunity to become a part of something great by selling your personal data to nonprofit organizations who champion these causes. Your efforts to self-empowerment can help power the movement towards a greener, fairer economy.
What’s your data worth?
Making opportunities more accessible. Helping underdeveloped and underrepresented communities alleviate their socioeconomic status. Closing the wealth gap. Demand and supply in the labor force.
All of these social issues can be solved with an education system that is capable of catering to the needs of its students. In the past, higher education was a privilege that only a select few could afford. Today, we have millions of perfectly eligible college-age adults and other individuals who have chosen to make a career change in order to cater to differences in supply and demand—but is our education system keeping up with what our economy needs?
In this episode, Alexander McCaig discusses alternative approaches to continued learning with special guest, Jim Bologa.
Jim Bologa is the President and CEO of the Porter and Chester Institute, which services Connecticut and Massachusetts; and the YTI Career Institute in Pennsylvania.
Remember what it felt like to graduate high school and suddenly feel bereft of purpose? You’ve got an entire world of possibilities that’s yours to take, but you just don’t know how to get your foot in the door.
Jim Bologa revealed that from time to time, he starts discussions surrounding higher education. The main issue is trying to find another viable path after high school for both young working adults who want to do something different, or elevate their career path from low-skill service jobs; and older individuals transitioning into different jobs.
The reality is that today, one college degree is not enough to last us a lifetime. In a world where information travels at the speed of light, we are pressured to become lifelong learners and to mold ourselves to an ever-changing job market.
Jim’s solution is to offer short-term diplomas and degrees in fields with high demand, with opportunities for asynchronous learning. This gives students the capability to transition into learning at their own pace, or to juggle a variety of other personal responsibilities alongside their education.
These programs usually take between 10 to 20 months to complete and in most cases, his students find jobs even before they graduate. This is made possible due to partnerships with companies who are looking for a reliable source of talent and skill in an unstable job market.
The COVID-19 outbreak has changed the way we live and work. Plenty of people are struggling with learning the skills needed to land a stable job when social distancing measures and public health issues make it difficult to maintain a semblance of normalcy.
This just goes to show that edtech is an incredibly powerful tool. Strategies like asynchronous learning and online classes are helpful for both schools and students because it’s giving everybody the best of both worlds. It’s a beautiful example of education changing for the better.
This paradigm shift in higher education caters to the job market in a way that benefits everyone involved. For example, if you’re a medical assistant and you’ve decided to become a practical nurse or respiratory therapist, you don’t need to go through four years of schooling to get certified. The return on an individual’s time and investment is increased, and companies are getting the talented people they need to maintain their operations.
Our economy needs a bridge that everyone, regardless of age, social status, or educational level, can use to adapt to an incredibly dynamic job market. That’s what Jim Bologa promises in his schools: a relationship-driven approach that offers flexibility to students, so that everyone can supplement their lifelong learning.
This is how humanity evolves. Our goal of creating data champions can only be achieved when people get the education and financial stability that they deserve. For the longest time, the best opportunities were only reserved for those who were already at the top of the socioeconomic ladder. Today, edtech and initiatives like the ones run by Jim Bologa make it possible for everyone else to access it too.
The increased access to educational opportunities have also been a clear win for companies because they also have a growing supply of talent and skill to supplement their operations. This idea has helped cause a domino effect between schools, companies, and the general public. It’s clear that we only truly win when we all win together.
What’s your data worth?
Can bad ideas spread like a virus? Are we susceptible to making the wrong decisions? What separates us from the radicalists that terrorize society today?
As it turns out, not much.
Today’s guest, Andy Norman, takes us through a comprehensive introduction on cognitive immunology. This is an emerging science of the mind that looks into how people start sliding down the slippery slope to fake news, misinformation, and disinformation in today’s post-truth society.
According to Andy Norman, the average flat earther is extremely gullible in certain respects but also hypercritical in others.
Their train of thought begins with this vague idea that the world may truly be flat and that everybody else is just intentionally misinterpreting the truth. Since not everyone is educated to fact-check and test ideas in the right way, they start going down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos and conspiracy websites.
They become increasingly intrigued by the feeling that they’re in on this big secret. As a result, they start isolating themselves in echo chambers of their own making. Soon they have an airtight community of fellow believers who believe in the same sentiments they do—and we are the ones looking in.
These people have hardly done due diligence and they are feeding off of incredibly unreliable information. In this sense, the mind has become “infected” with bad ideas, and these ideas spread like parasites.
If we want humanity to evolve for the better, we need to strengthen our immune systems so that we are not vulnerable to these parasites. While it will eventually call for systemic change to address how our perspectives are largely shaped by the way we grew up, we can only kickstart this on a personal level.
To better equip humanity against all the fake news and misinformation, Andy Norman suggests bringing back the Socratic Method. This is a method of learning which focuses on a dialogue between teachers and students, furthered by the teacher continually asking probing questions.
The constant questioning is an effort to explore the underlying beliefs that shape the student’s views and opinions. In many ways, this is a good technique to engage in dialogue with others who do not have the same mindset as you do. Today, there are so many different world views and perspectives.
Amidst this, it may become difficult to reach out to one another because we are afraid of coming across as offensive, insensitive, or dismissive. Conversely, it may also be difficult for people to reach out when we start considering our ideas as a part of who we are.
Our ideas of how to view the world should be fluid, and held only within the boundaries of reason. It is when we convince ourselves that we need to defend ideas to an absolute value that we turn into radicalists, which exist on both sides of all spectrums: politically, religiously, and socially.
It’s important to hold your ideas at a distance. Yes, the feeling of being a part of a community can be all-encompassing. Knowing that you are affirmed by others who hold the same ideas can be empowering. But if this is taken too far, it will only serve to isolate you from others.
We can only move forward when we move forward together. The alternative is to accept that we are not our ideas. Our ideas will reach limits, and we must part with them then. We should only entertain ideas within certain bounds while holding true to our values.
Hold your beliefs loosely. Be ready to part when someone raises a sufficiently good reason, an opportunity to question: is it worth still believing in this idea if it means that holding onto it isolates me from humanity?
Here at TARTLE, we are invested in the evolution of humanity. The next step forward will take data-driven measures at reaching the truth in a post-truth era. With that said, we need to look out for each other and hold ourselves accountable for our ideas.
Ask questions. Help your loved ones reach conclusions. Keep an open mind and be slow to take offense. A line of inquiry is not a personal attack, but an attempt at getting to the bottom of the ideas you hold about yourself, the society, and the world.
What’s your data worth? Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through the link here.
Sound is something that we experience everyday. Whether through nature or through music, sound affects us for our entire lives. This can be a good and pleasing sound, like the flowing of water, or perhaps the music we enjoy. However, what happens when sound becomes noise?
Sound is a two-edged sword: in one form, it can be a powerful tool for relaxation and productivity. In another form, it could have an impact on our focus and even our overall health. Whether the passing of a train or the loud neighbors next door, noise isn’t just a nuisance. It can also be detrimental.
We’ll be discussing noise, acoustics, and their great impact on our lives. Joining Alexander McCaig is Charles Salter, one of the foremost pioneers in audio engineering. Charles Salter has done countless acoustical consulting work over his 50 years as an acoustic engineer.
There are two aspects when it comes to assessing the noise of a given area. First, are the state and federal standards that everyone must follow. These standards concern the safety of people in regards to noise, as it can have adverse effects on both health and productivity.
The second aspect, however, is a more subjective standard. This concerns the tolerance and sensitivity of the people affected by the noise. As some people are more sensitive to noise than others, acoustics must be well-designed to meet the standards of everyone affected by a given area.
For example, a hotel must meet acoustical standards because poor design can drive away clients. Another effect of poor acoustic design is the potential noise complaints that will arise.
On the other side of noise, Salter shares a case where a meeting room was too silent. The floor was carpeted, while also having an acoustic tile ceiling. This created a room that sounded dead, which made occupants uncomfortable.
And so, the acoustics of a room have to sound natural. It must not be too loud nor too silent, as both are uncomfortable and undesirable. The room has to make everyone not only relaxed, but also have good acoustics for its specific function.
Because acoustical design is so important, proper and accurate communication between the architect and acoustical consultant is key for a place to have a balance between good design and acoustics.
When you look at evolution, being able to hear has always been a requirement for humans to survive. It is a mechanism that not only allowed early humans to keep away from dangerous sounds, but also as a tool for hunting and communication.
In the modern era, sound is a bit less of a life-and-death tool, and more of a convenience. Music is one example. It is a form of entertainment and expression for people. If we had to use sound to avoid predators back then, in modern times our biggest concern is keeping away from noisy neighbors.
In acoustics, biophilia is a type of design that aims to replicate the natural sounds found in our environment. Its main objective is to reduce the stress within a room, looking to nature for inspiration when designing acoustics. Integrating biophilic design into the infrastructure of modern buildings is one way we can use the power of sound to create more conducive living and working spaces.
The noise given off by water is an example of biophilic design, because the gurgling of a stream or the cadence of a waterfall is naturally relaxing. From an evolutionary standpoint, our response to these types of sounds has been ingrained in us by our ancestors where these sounds meant that they had a source of water nearby.
Acoustic engineering has been around for a long time, improving our auditory experience of the world. A good example of this is noise-canceling technology. As the name suggests, it aims to remove unwanted noise around us. It does this by using a microphone to listen for ambient sound, and then producing sound waves of an opposite frequency.
Sound as an aspect of our existence doesn’t get enough focus. We tend to focus on visuals and whether something looks good or not, rather than focusing on both the implications of sound on our everyday lives. For us to have the space to evolve into our best selves, we should strive to design everything to be acoustically pleasant, while still aiming for its specific function.
Do you control your data, or does your data control you?
The internet has evolved at an unprecedented pace. It’s a massive network of individuals, corporations, and other entities that can fit in the back of your pocket. Our most prominent use of the internet is for communication—through social media, we believe we are empowered because of our extensive connections, we think that we have been given a voice because we are only on one end of the screen, sometimes shrouded in the comfort of anonymity.
Jaron Lanier wants to challenge those beliefs.
Jaron Lanier is a pioneer of virtual reality technology and has been in the industry since the 1980s. His involvement in the evolution of modern technology has given him rockstar status in the tech world.
However, he’s taken a complete 180 regarding his beliefs on the growth of the internet and the direction that adjacent technologies have taken—and many of his opinions align with what TARTLE stands for.
In this episode, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby engage in a light back-and-forth on a quote made by Jaron Lanier in his book entitled, Who Owns The Future?
“The foundational idea of humanistic computing is that provenance is valuable. Information is people in disguise, and people ought to be paid for value they contribute that can be sent or stored on a digital network.” - Jaron Lanier
Jaron describes how the internet has journeyed down a path where human beings are all treated like machine components in one giant electronic brain. We all take our part in powering this massive brain through our interactions on the internet: we build a unique personal profile as netizens by visiting our favorite websites, shopping for goods and services, and otherwise investing plenty of time and effort navigating the digital landscape.
The internet takes all these interactions and synthesizes it to create an all-knowing electronic brain that is capable of fulfilling all our desires. If you want to buy a certain product and start searching for it, you’ll soon get ads showing that specific item across your platforms. If you look at the websites and applications you use, your mind is trained on the function of the product and how amazing it is for technology to have reached this point.
We forget that everything on the internet is hoisted on the shoulders of ordinary people, like us.
Where is the harm in this? The internet dehumanizes people and takes away our capacity to have a meaningful, authentic human experience—especially when you fall victim to the allure of social media.
One of the most thrilling ideas of being on the internet is that at any time, you can hide behind a veil of anonymity. It’s a great development for many people: anonymity helps others speak up about experiences they were too afraid to share. For example, the #MeToo movement helped bring a voice to oppressed women across the world through anonymous posting.
However, anonymity can also have an ugly face. It’s also enabled troll farms, fake news mills, and doxxing. In some cases, it’s endangered the lives of innocent people.
This is not to say that the progress we’ve made because of anonymity is invalidated with their presence. It is, however, an indication that we must do more to reign in the evolution of the internet so that it returns to being human-centered.
In a world so interconnected with the internet, it can be difficult to change our perspective on social media—but that’s not to say that it can’t be done.
When you have the right tools and equipment to take control of your data and turn it around, you’ll be able to notice how much you’re capable of and how much influence was taken away from you by the internet.
That’s what TARTLE hopes to do for you.
We offer a collaborative and transparent marketplace where everyone is compensated for the value that they contribute to the platform. You sign up, fill out a data packet, and submit it for sale to companies and causes that are important to you.
Your information and purchases are stored securely on the network. You are in complete control over the information you submit, the amount of work you put out, and the amount of money you receive.
If you’re reading this, Jaron, we think TARTLE’s the platform you’re looking for. We’d love to have you on the podcast so we can discuss further:
What’s your data worth? Sign up for the TARTLE Marketplace through this link here.
Water is essential for economic activities as well as for the well-being of humans. Considering how critical water is to both agricultural production and domestic consumption, conflict over water and the potential ramifications of decisions made over it may have much further consequences for human well-being. It can even have an impact on economic development and social change.
The problem of getting access to fresh water is a global priority that needs to be addressed.
Access to safe water is vital for the survival of all life on Earth. Civilization began along the banks of rivers and canals, and waterways played a significant role in the development of agriculture, commerce, and advances in industry, science, and technological innovation.
Water scarcity is not just a result of natural resource depletion; it is also the result of power relations and political decisions. Addressing water development as a political problem might provide light on some of the extra areas of concern.
The availability of clean drinking water has long played a role in politics, with decisions about the provision of services having the potential to positively impact or harm citizens depending on their access to safe water in their communities. Because of the scarcity of this essential resource, communities are forced to compete against one another for access to it.
Social conflicts and societal change are created and influenced at the same time by the natural conditions in which water occurs, sometimes in unexpected and unforeseen directions. There are structural obstacles in water development that address infrastructure, financing, and economic sustainability, as well as education and awareness of water issues.
For example, water has an effect on gender and income inequality in plenty of underdeveloped communities. Women are traditionally the family members responsible for retrieving water. When they spend a significant portion of their day procuring this basic resource, they are unable to alleviate their financial situation through work or education.
Being in a situation with no fresh water is indeed a terrifying concept since it poses a major and immediate danger to our own life. Regrettably, this is a concern that millions of individuals currently experience on a daily basis.
It is reasonable to assume that water, which occupies 70% of our planet, would always be abundant. However, fresh water, on the other hand, is rather scarce. More than two-thirds of the freshwater on the planet is frozen in glaciers or otherwise inaccessible to humans.
Despite water being virtually everywhere from seas and rivers to underground reservoirs, why is it still a scarce resource? This might happen if there is a shortage of supply or if the infrastructure for distribution is inadequate.
Water resources are being depleted in some parts of the world on a regular basis, such as in northern Africa, the Middle East, and western Asia. Excessive use of non-renewable resources to meet water needs has led some countries to extract ten times their yearly renewable water supply. If nothing is done, the people of these countries will face an impending humanitarian catastrophe if ever these water reserves become depleted.
Water scarcity and insecurity is a threat to human lives and ecosystems everywhere. This can lead to severe malnutrition among people and gradual economic decline for affected nations.
Whole ecosystems suffer when freshwater is insufficient. Pollution may cause rivers, lakes, and aquifers to dry up. As a consequence of climate change, some places are experiencing water shortages and drought, while others are experiencing floods.
Since it has been established that water scarcity is not just an issue of supply and demand but also an issue of politics, it is critical that we tackle systemic issues associated with water resource management and habitat protection prior to the onset of the worst effects of climate change.
Governments, corporations, and local communities must cooperate to maintain adequate in-stream levels of freshwater for humans and other freshwater species, as well as to encourage ways for sustainable consumption. There is also a need for these institutions to develop and adapt innovative solutions that would aid in the effort of maintaining water supply and prevent future problems with water insecurity.
Human lives and entire civilizations depend on water to exist and thrive— and yet, the problems surrounding adequate water supply and distribution remain severely understated.
We need to understand how social pressure influences the way resources are allocated and handled. We would be better equipped in holding governments responsible and exercising our rights to clean water if we are more informed about how politics affects natural resources management.
Inadequate understanding of the relationship between access to sufficient water and national stability poses grave global security implications, particularly if remedial technology and policy measures to strengthen water resilience and assure availability and access are not adopted.
In TARTLE, we believe that proactive collaboration is the key to hurdling various issues, including those that affect humanity in a global scheme. Information and cooperation is a vital part in addressing these systemic problems, and we envision a society strengthened by these values. The power is back in your hands.
What’s your data worth?
